Sooner or later, every tech giant decides to get into the retail business.
There’s Apple, of course, whose 500-plus stores rank among its greatest, most disruptive successes. But also Microsoft (twice). And Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Sony.
And now, Meta. On Monday, the company formerly known as Facebook is opening its first Meta Store, a retail outlet open to the public. It’s located in Burlingame, California, on the campus of the company’s 17,000-employee Reality Labs arm. That’s the group responsible for the Meta Quest 2 headset, Portal video-calling device, and Ray-Ban Stories camera-enabled sunglasses—the products the store will feature. You’ll be able to buy Quest and Portal devices there, though—weirdly—not the Ray-Ban Stories, which staffers will help interested shoppers purchase online. (Ray-Ban owner Luxottica oversees their retail distribution, apparently precluding Meta from selling them.)
Much of the time, moving product does not seem to be the primary goal; the companies in question are fine with your checking out the goods but then buying somewhere else. Instead, it’s about showing off goods with a level of TLC they rarely get at big-box retailers, where merchandising is more about filling shelves than telling a story. Back in 1999, for instance, Microsoft described MicrosoftSF, at San Francisco’s Metreon, as a “retail environment” rather than a computer store, and quoted Steve Ballmer explaining that it was “dedicated to showing, in an interactive environment, the way technology can enhance our working, learning, living, and playing.”
The fact that many tech-company retail presences aren’t about creating a new profit center might be why they eventually feel expendable. When MicrosoftSF closed, just two and a half years after it opened, Microsoft told CNET that the store—excuse me, the retail environment—”no longer fit the company’s core business priorities.” Eight years later, after the Apple Store became a phenomenon, retail once again was a priority for Microsoft—until it wasn’t. (The company did keep three locations around as Experience Centers, once again deemphasizing actual sales transactions.)
Rather than getting space in a well-trafficked mall or shopping district, Meta is opening the store on its own premises, where it might be easier to keep tabs on, but intrigued passersby will be in short supply. Then there’s the fact that it’s open only Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.—not exactly prime time for gadget shopping.
My colleague Elizabeth Segran described Google’s new New York City store as feeling more like an interactive museum than a shopping destination: It’s full of quirky installations, such as a spot where you can say something and have it instantly translated into 24 languages via Google Translate. By contrast, Meta’s store is focused on the simple goal of giving you hands-on experience with the company’s devices: “At the Meta Store, we want you to interact with everything,” explains the company’s blog post on the opening. “We want you to pick stuff up. We want you to feel it.” The closest thing to spectacle is a Quest 2 tryout area where the headset display is replicated on a giant screen behind you, so bystanders can see what you see in such VR experiences as Beat Saber.
In general, mass-market retailers aren’t great places to learn about new products; it’s no shocker that Meta might want to take on more of the responsibility itself. But having to help consumers understand its products is still a relatively new experience for the company. Back when it was a startup called Facebook, it got huge fast because of its friction-free virality. People joined because their friends were there, and the whole process required barely any consideration. Later, WhatsApp and Instagram benefited from similar dynamics.
So even if the new Meta Store is a relatively small whoop—and even if it doesn’t stick around forever—it’s trying to solve a real problem. And since the problem isn’t uniquely Meta’s, it’s a safe bet that it won’t be the last tech company to try its hand at playing shopkeeper.